Proactive B2B eCommerce Strategies to Take on Evolving Challenges

Contalog

This prediction will soon become a reality considering the fact that the annual B2B eCommerce sales is higher than B2C eCommerce sales in the US by 470 billion USD.

The viral growth is posing loads of challenges to the B2B industry compelling them to redefine strategies in sales, customer support and marketing. Here are some of the challenges and strategies that B2B eCommerce should be working on to stay on top.

MARKETING

Challenge – What to focus on ?

B2B eCommerce is almost in par with B2C in terms of marketing. B2B players are taking their marketing efforts to social media as well. The challenge is most of the businesses don’t have a clear idea on what should be focussed in order to win customers.

Strategy – Logic of the product, information, ROI

B2B customers are desperate to know every pinch of information that can be known before making their purchase decision. Your marketing materials should be highly informative and most importantly, focussed on clearly conveying them what’s their ROI on buying your product. The ROI may be on saving cost, time or money. Also keep in mind the constraints of an organization and the role the buyers of an organization play in order to strategize your marketing pitch accordingly.

PRICING

Challenge – Different order volumes

B2B orders can start from a few 100s of and go up to several thousands. Order volumes are most often heavy creating a need for system to negotiate on the price of each product. B2B customers naturally expect slashed prices when the order volume goes up.

Strategy – Provision for price negotiation

Deploy B2B eCommerce solution that is up for providing personalized price tags. Your B2B store should be accommodative enough to provide different price proposals over different phases of negotiation. Additionally, your B2B store system should have space for more people like salesperson and be fine with multiple payment options as well.

INFORMATION

Challenge – Being up to date with product and vendor information

A B2B business’ network is big as such and grows with time adding more products to its portfolio and more customers as well. It is essential that all the product information, newly added vendor details are updated to the entire network as and when they happen.

Strategy – Centralize vendor and product information on cloud

A cloud-based product information and customer information system would enable a B2B business to update new additions real-time. For instance, pushing a newly added product to a B2B businesses’ network is easy when it is centrally managed on cloud as the update gets reflected to the entire endor network instantly.

VENDORS

Challenge – Roles, approvals and access permissions

A B2B ecommerce purchase journey involves different phases of negotiation and approvals from different authorities of B2B business and consumer end at each stage.

Strategy – Accommodate multiple roles

Go for a B2B focused eCommerce software that accommodates multiple roles and enables you to provide and limit access permission for approvals, edits and views based on roles.

To wrap it up

B2B eCommerce has its own uniqueness at every stage. From pricing to product information, marketing to vendor friendliness, every aspect of B2B eCommerce needs to be personalized and updated with time based on the ever-evolving demands. Make sure you go for a B2B eCommerce software that’s smart enough to evolve and flexible enough to accommodate changes.

About The Author

Ramanathan

Ramanathan is a Content Writer who serves for the Digital Marketing team. He is interested in sharing knowledge on the evolving web and mobile technologies and ideas on content marketing.

Great work done. Thanks for sharing this analysis of b2b e commerce challenges. From complex sales channels to multiple product lines, B2B business owners are often faced with challenges that retailers aren’t often burdened with.
Though most B2B relationships are the responsibility of a sales team.